For the first time in the history of telecommunications networks, significant computing power has become available to the end user's device. This welcome change has the ability to reshape the architecture of all mobile telecommunications networks. Traditionally the Operational Support Systems/Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS) were large-scale, extremely complex, centralized systems within the network. With the proliferation of next generation smartphones and wireless PDAs, significant intelligence can be pushed out to the subscriber terminal, and thus the ability to greatly simplify OSS/BSS has emerged.
The telecommunications industry is on the verge of a revolution in support system technologies. A rare intersection of technological change has become apparent in the mobile industry. Mobile data networks have been deployed around the world. These networks provide fast reliable packet data to subscriber's mobile devices. At the same time, intelligent mobile devices (smartphones) have emerged as capable computing platforms with considerable processing power, onboard storage and memory.
Smartphones are devices running feature rich operating systems such as Symbian, PalmOS, Microsoft WinCE, BREW (Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless) and Java MIDP compliant devices. Due to the complex nature and multitude of new features, these smartphones are difficult to configure; compounded with limited keyboards, entering information such as personal details and configuration settings is not only difficult but also highly prone to human errors. A combination of complex features and associated configuration requirements, provides the opportunity to exponentially improve upon the customer support solutions for wireless network operators. Intelligent client-based OSS systems have now become possible.
With the wide availability of downloadable services and applications available for smartphone users, and the increasing costs of customer care, ensuring efficient and less-cumbersome support when problems arise is an increasing necessity. In contrast to traditional customer service applications that are available in contact centers (or customer care centers) today, CSRs (Customer Service Representatives) must undertake the extensive and time-consuming task of asking customers complex questions pertaining to their wireless devices for problem diagnosis. This requires CSRs to be experts on smartphones and their applications, and also requires customers to spend increased time on the telephone to receive support for their applications. The result is increased support costs, increased call handling times, complex diagnostic processes and overall frustration.
The current method of gathering and obtaining smartphone information required for diagnostics is manual and therefore complex, time consuming and prone to human errors. This problematic approach is an ineffective method of just-in-time customer support and does not guarantee effective problem resolution. These current customer support methods leave both the subscribers and customer support staff frustrated. In addition, obtaining diagnostic information requires a specialized support staff and contact centers must therefore hire and train specialized staff for specific tasks. For the service provider this means increased hiring and operational costs.
The customer support process is increasing in complexity. Once device-specific profiles have been obtained from subscriber devices, then must begin the arduous task of identifying inconsistencies in the subscriber's configuration data in order to diagnose and resolve problems. The level of expertise required by the CSR to understand numerous smartphones and to search for up-to-date configuration data leads to increased costs in training, call-durations, and the overall operational costs.
With the emergence of smartphones and wireless PDAs and their ability to download and install applications, the wireless industry is poised to see explosive growth in application usage by subscribers. Mobile operator customer care centers are focused on solutions for closed, voice-centric mobile phones. This infrastructure is not suited to efficiently solve the intelligent mobile data device and application problems described above. The proliferation of next generation smartphones and the complexity of issues and problem solving needed, requires a customer care application specifically tailored to meet these emerging business needs.